Cuckoo

Cuckoo forms the second part of Jaha Koo's Hamartia Trilogy. Together with Lolling & Rolling and The History of Korean Western Theatre, the trilogy consists of three intelligent documentary theatre performances, each telling a story about 'hamartia', Greek for 'tragic error'. The common thread here is the far-reaching imperialism of the past and present, and its sometimes unexpected personal impact. Each time, Jaha Koo interweaves his personal stories with historical, political and sociological facts. Often themes that involve a clash of Eastern and Western culture: from the clipping of tongues to make it in the West, to the heavy personal toll of Western interference in the macroeconomic sphere.  

IN THE PRESS

"Cuckoo serves as a documentary narrative that everyone should witness. Its originality shines through, challenging preconceptions by highlighting the power of three rice cookers as unlikely raconteurs." - Medium - Lorenzo Belenguer, 20-09-23

"Cuckoo is a heavy, affecting piece of documentary theatre that masterfully wields its multimedia for both dark humour and piercing effect." - Bakchormeeboy - ★★★★★, 02-06-23

"My main artistic languages are music, video and robotic objects as theatre-maker." - Men's Folio - Charmaine Tan, 29-05-23

"A suicide every 37 minutes - Or how capitalism kills" - Publico - Mariana Duarte, 13-10-22

"... the work is intrinsically Korean – but which also has a modern European style and sensitivity, and sits very well into the body of Flemish new theatre work that explores the possibilities of the performance-lecture. A week later, I’m still haunted by the show’s sounds and images." - Totaltheatre.org.uk - Dorothy Max Prior , 12-02-19

"This performance by Koo is intriguing, disturbing and reflective of a world more and more subject to the dystopian Orwellian view." - Global Media Post - Mike Harrison, 26-02-20

"In Cuckoo, Jaha Koo tries to capture how his young personal life is entangled with collective South-Korean history." - Etcetera - Jasper Delbecke & Sébastien Hendrickx, 13-09-18

"Jaha Koo breaks through the boundaries between human and machine/robot that we as humans wish to preserve. How we can still be human, is the existential question Jaha Koo formulates in Cuckoo." - Tumult.fm - Carlo Siau, 06-02-23